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<title>cunning, clever boy (a Dark Livestream timestamp) by Chaotic_Smutty (Anna_Hopkins)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24533188">cunning, clever boy (a Dark Livestream timestamp)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Chaotic_Smutty'>Chaotic_Smutty (Anna_Hopkins)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dark Livestream [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Chapter ten, Dark Livestream, Dark Livestream 'verse, Gratuitously Hot Voldemort, M/M, Missing Scene, Not Beta Read, POV Voldemort (Harry Potter), Timestamp</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:06:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,308</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24533188</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Chaotic_Smutty</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during Chapter Ten of <i>Dark Livestream</i> - Lord Voldemort watches his Assistant sleep. He is tempted, so tempted...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter &amp; Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dark Livestream [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>630</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>cunning, clever boy (a Dark Livestream timestamp)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Voldemort sometimes wished he could see the face beneath Assistant's hood. It was not out of a desire to see the man's true identity; no, the public name and face Assistant wore when out of his reach was nothing to him, not when the Dark Lord could instead call him </span>
  <em>
    <span>my Assistant,</span>
  </em>
  <span> a name no one could hope to separate from Voldemort's influence. Assistant as Assistant was </span>
  <em>
    <span>his alone,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and that was a perfect thing, not to be trifled with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, his wish to see Assistant's face was only in order to categorize the expressions that played across his features, the way he studied his body language. The way Assistant carried himself at different times could speak volumes; a constant test of Voldemort's attention to detail, because despite the time he spent with the younger wizard, he could never quite predict him. Assistant's moods seemed to be as varied and mercurial as the Dark Lord's own, roiling underneath layers of duty, obedience, agreement, studious attention whenever they were together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Assistant was subtle with his emotions, but he showed them; not like Severus, who showed none at all save what he thought he was meant to. There was the ripple of tension in shoulders that spoke of surprise; a way his Assistant tilted his head when he was listening very closely; the shift of weight all onto one foot if uncertain, or the other if he was ready; and so many more, but Voldemort's very favorite had come to be the confident, loose-limbed sprawl he got to see when Assistant drank with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That posture was what he most wished to see a face for. Did Assistant look at him the way he imagined he did? Pupils dark under a half-lidded gaze, a slow smirk across the fine features Voldemort had felt under his hands so briefly before - or was his mouth slack, open, warm exhalations scented with the gin they'd had?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now Assistant was asleep in his bed - a temptation of the highest order, even after Voldemort slept off the haze of the liquor. What the Dark Lord would give to just reach through the shadows obscuring his face, now, to trace again the curve of Assistant's jaw as he had when he'd bestowed the earring Portkey upon him -</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(-there had been something momentous about that, too, as the earring's needle pierced through and fastened itself within the man's soft flesh, a </span>
  <em>
    <span>give,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and the tiniest stutter of breath against the Dark Lord's wrist where it was close to Assistant's mouth-)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or better, he could trace Assistant's lower lip with a fingertip, a thumb, pry open his lax mouth and feel the edge of teeth, the tip of a warm, wet tongue-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if sensing his thoughts, the sleeping man shifted closer, a small sigh escaping those same hidden lips. New ideas poured into Voldemort's mind as from a faucet, each more obscene than the last. He could take Assistant in his arms now and pull him closer, join their mouths under the bridal veil that hid his features, lick the traces of gin from every crevice of Assistant's mouth. He could lie atop him, instead, and lavish every inch of the expanse of pale skin laid bare before him, this body the man always kept buttoned up under thin black fabrics and tight leathers, and adorn his Assistant with the marks of lips and teeth, consuming him like the feast that he was-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew how Assistant sounded when pleasure filled him - when he was driven to it, the feverish heat of Dark magic under his skin </span>
  <em>
    <span>because I put it there</span>
  </em>
  <span> - Voldemort raked his gaze over Assistant's torso, tempted-so-tempted to adjust the sheets merely as a ruse to see more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He flexed the fingers of one hand, considering, but no. He would only look, and only at what was shown to him by happenstance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he looked; and was surprised, pleasantly, to find another thing he could categorize about Assistant in this moment - the scars that littered his arms, his hands, little histories that belonged to Assistant's life separate from Lord Voldemort, to the identity he did not care to truly learn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Was it unfair of him to wish for a scar upon Assistant that he, Lord Voldemort, had made?)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>High up on his left arm, a large puncture, long healed over - a dragon's tooth, Voldemort imagined, or a spearhead. Numerous small lines on the outer forearm as well: defensive wounds, older still. In the half-light that reached the bed through the curtains drawn over the windows, the thin scratches were nearly invisible, like spider's threads.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the right arm, a more jagged, uglier scar in the crook of the elbow: needlessly large, thought Voldemort, fear or reluctance or a dull blade, if Assistant had meant to draw blood for a ritual. (Though in any case a much better location than at the wrist, which he had always found bled too readily and was harder to heal over afterward.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Assistant's hand twitched against the sheets, turning slightly, and Voldemort blinked to see scars on the back of it, standing out far more than the scratches on the left. Carefully, gently, he turned the hand over to read.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A messy scrawl: </span>
  <em>
    <span>I must not tell lies.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>...This was a blood quill curse scar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Voldemort sucked in a breath, wary of disturbing Assistant while he reread the line. /Umbridge/ had done this. Had </span>
  <em>
    <span>mutilated</span>
  </em>
  <span> his Assistant. The Dark Lord had known that bitch of a witch had perpetuated abuse with that accursed quill, but he had never known- never suspected- he would figure out where he'd buried that corpse and resurrect it </span>
  <em>
    <span>right now</span>
  </em>
  <span> for renewed vengeance, he would break every bone in Umbridge's body-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he remembered: Assistant had already </span>
  <em>
    <span>gotten</span>
  </em>
  <span> his revenge, hadn't he? He had submitted the winning death on-stream. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I told you so.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Voldemort had even sent her lines to Assistant, as a trophy, all without knowing it was a personal revenge to the man.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Clever boy,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he mouthed, now absurdly tempted to bring the scarred hand to his lips, to kiss the scarred skin more boldly than was proper. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh clever, cunning, darling boy.</span>
  </em>
  <span> To lave his tongue over the raised skin, to graze his teeth on the jagged edge of </span>
  <em>
    <span>lies</span>
  </em>
  <span> in praise. </span>
  <em>
    <span>How Slytherin of you, Assistant.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Voldemort gazed down at the hand, finding that his own had remained with it, thumbing over the scars without his notice. Funny how he had not noticed the scars earlier, had not felt them while he poured his Dark essence into Assistant through blood-slick contact during the ritual; now, half a day later at least, the latent magic of the cursed quill which lingered beneath Assistant's skin prickled against the pad of his thumb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Umbridge could not be allowed to leave a claim of any kind upon this man, the Dark Lord thought. Unbidden by him, his magic pushed into the old scars, settling underneath them and slowly, painlessly, displacing the curse into the open air where it would die away. Voldemort sighed, releasing Assistant's hand, and lay on his side to watch the younger wizard sleep for just a while longer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Soon, Assistant's breathing changed, and he woke, and Voldemort gazed warmly upon him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Good afternoon, Assistant." </span>
  <em>
    <span>How lovely you appear in this lighting.</span>
  </em>
  <span> "It seems I've kept you later than usual." </span>
  <em>
    <span>I would gladly keep you longer, all to myself.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He gazed, entranced, upon the fine musculature of Assistant's shoulders, back, and lower to where his body had been hidden by the sheet just minutes earlier. Oh, what a sight the man was. The Dark Lord's hips shifted on the bed; the Greeks had been all too right about the appeal of buttocks and sport-muscled thighs.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hours later, after a long shower, Harry noticed that the scar on his hand was gone.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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